Jane Perrone's organic gardening blog

February 09, 2008

Trench composting saves the day

As fellow composter Simon Sherlock pointed out in the comments to my previous post, it will be some time before my new worm composter can take all my kitchen waste. Add too much in the early stages and the worms won't be able to eat it before some of the stuff putrefies, making the worms unhappy, and possibly dead.

I forgot to say earlier that my solution to the excess kitchen waste problem, now that my allotment site has banned it from compost heaps, is trench composting.

I am assuming the powers that be won't object because in trench composting, the waste is buried so isn't a food source for vermin. In fact this composting method is, aside from the effort of digging a hole, the easiest job in the world: no equipment necessary, and once it's in the hole you can forget about the waste. And it's a great way to prepare an area for growing "hungry" crops such as beans and squash.

The principle is simple - dig a trench (or a hole) to a depth of about a spade or a spade and a half and chuck in a few inches a kitchen waste - meat, fish and cooked leftovers are all acceptable in addition to the usual peelings and shredded paper. Then cover it over with the soil you removed, being very careful to cover all the waste thoroughly. This is best done a couple of months before planting time, to give the food a chance to break down properly.

I usually follow this method in the winter when the compost heap is shut down and left to its own devices. Now that the rules have changed, this will be a useful way of disposing of the waste until the worm composter gets up to speed.

Garden Organic has more information and a picture of a compost trench in action here.

Simon suggested Bokashi composting as another method of dealing with the waste. I'd love to give it a try, and will write more about this fascinating method in a future post, but at the moment I don't want any more outlay on composting equipment so the trench composting will do very nicely.

That sounds like a really good idea - I have been wondering for ages what to do with cooked food waste. Although I'm seriously thinking about a Bokashi bin so looking forward to your future post on the subject .

Trench composting is okay, except for the egg shells, but what I do to help the red wigglers out, and I have tons in the summer, is I save my kitchen waste in a small plastic canister with a tight top, purchased at BBBY, then dump in it in a blender so when I trudge out back I just pour the mix over the rotting leaves. It makes the best compost.

I've just spent this morning on a York Rotters composting course - apparently the no composting kitchen waste at the allotment thing is not just a random silly rule for your site, it's actually illegal to move food waste (and even compost made from it) between sites: the law was brought in to prevent the spread of foot & mouth disease.

It does seem pretty ridiculous, not to mention difficult to enforce, and campaigners are apparently trying to get it overturned.

That's really interesting Melanie - I had no idea. I am not sure if that's the reason for the ban on my site - it just seemed to be the rodent concerns. I'll ask the allotment officer next time I email her ... would be interesting to know how widely applied this rule is around the country.

Since I have a very small backyard and an even smaller garden 3x4, I love trench composting. I have noticed that when I bury my scraps they are completely gone in a maximum of two weeks. Any remarks as to why the ground absorbs the scraps so quickly? This garden is less than 1 year old. I bought a pound of worms and they hung around for about a month and now are gone. I have lived in the AZ desert all my life but have never seen anything like this.